Prizes

The Sir Roland Wilson Foundation sponsors three prizes across the University.

Joan Uhr Prize

In May 2017 the Foundation Board agreed to establish a new prize to be awarded to the scholar or alumni who has made the greatest contribution to public policy in the past year, particularly through strengthening the links between the APS and the ANU. The prize was named after the founding Executive Director of the Foundation, Joan Uhr, in recognition of her contributions. The inaugural Joan Uhr prize was awarded to Camille Goodman at the annual Secretaries’ Dinner in December 2017.
Camille was involved in an impressive array of activities, including establishing workshops, interest groups and publishing the associated papers, in addition to making significant progress on her PhD thesis.

The Sir Roland Wilson Prize ($1500)

Sir Roland Wilson was born in Tasmania, and was awarded a Rhodes scholarship in 1925. He completed a DPhil at Oxford University and then a PhD at the University of Chicago.

From 1936 – 1940, Wilson was the Commonwealth Statistician for the Australian Bureau of Statistics. In 1940 he was appointed the Secretary to the Department of Labour and National Service and played a part in designing Australia’s response to World War II.

In 1951, Roland Wilson was appointed Secretary to the Treasury. At the time, he was the youngest person to hold that position at age 47. He remained in this position until 1966, a tenure which has never been exceeded.

His years at Treasury were extraordinary, characterised by full employment, relative price stability and sustained economic growth.

This prize is awarded each year to the student who, in that year completed the requirements for the award of the Master of Business Administration; was among the five students who achieved the highest overall aggregate result in the compulsory core courses, and contributed most to the program in terms of leadership and good citizenship in the period of his or her enrolment, in the opinion of the Dean of the ANU College of Business and Economics.

The Ian Castles Prize ($1000)

Ian Castles was born on February 20, 1935, at Kyneton, Victoria. Ian attended state schools in Sale before going to Wesley College and a commerce degree at Melbourne University. He worked in the university’s economics department and joined the public service in 1954 in the National Library archives division. He transferred to Canberra in 1957 and to Treasury in 1958.

There he headed the economic and financial surveys, and balance of payments branches. He was Treasury’s London representative and part of Australia’s mission to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. He joined Prime Minister and Cabinet in 1973.

Ian Castles was a member of the Sir Roland Wilson Board from 1999-2009.

This prize is awarded each year to the student who, in that year completed the requirements for the award of the Master of Applied Statistics within the ANU College of Business and Economics; and achieved the best result as shown by the award of the highest aggregate mark in the courses offered in the Master of Applied Statistics program.